


from way up there, you and i (you and i)

by overcomewithlongingfora_girl



Series: three's a crowd [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Anniversary, Blindfolds, Blow Jobs, But Yeah It's There, Butt Plugs, Cock Rings, Crossdressing, Cunnilingus, Disguise, F/M, Face-Sitting, Feminization, Fluff, Go Me That's New, Happy, Light Bondage, Love, Makeup, Pegging, Porn With Plot, Rimming, Roleplay, Shopping, Sokka and Suki Have Fun, Suki Deserves This, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Truly Guys I'm Branching Out, Vaginal Sex, disguises, just a little little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:33:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25797457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overcomewithlongingfora_girl/pseuds/overcomewithlongingfora_girl
Summary: It's Sokka, Suki, and Zuko's one year anniversary, and everyone has big plans. They're all sneaking off in pairs to get their shopping done, and if everyone has a little fun along the way, well that's just an added bonus.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: three's a crowd [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823287
Comments: 138
Kudos: 524





	1. well, you might be a bit confused

“You know next week is one year.”

The spring air smells like grass, and it’s the heat of the afternoon, a real Fire Nation scorcher of a day. There’s light wind moving through the branches of the trees, there are pale clouds overhead, and Sokka’s girlfriend is being ridiculous.

“Next week is one year,” she repeats. “Remember?”

Sokka scoffs. “Of course I remember that. Why do you think I’m in town?”

“Not to see your beautiful girlfriend?” Suki lifts an eyebrow.

“No way.”

She smacks him for that one, leaning over awkwardly to whack his bicep. Sokka doesn’t move and can’t bring himself to care. He’s too comfortable where he is – lying in the sun in one of the little hidden courtyards that Zuko loves so much. Too bad their boyfriend isn’t with them now. He’s off somewhere ‘being the Fire Lord’, which apparently comes with rather a lot of duties. As much as Sokka loves sitting in on dry cabinet meetings – and sometimes, when Zuko lets him mess around, he really does – this time, he and Suki have opted to lie out in the sun and wait for Zuko to be finished.

Or, Sokka is lying out in the sun and Suki is complaining because she has to sit under a tree or she’ll get burned. Sokka’s dark skin doesn’t burn – thank you _,_ Arctic sun – and he’s half-asleep, all of himself heavy and warm, when Suki jabs him in the ribs with a toe. Still drowsy, he groans, tries to ignore it, but there’s that sharp poke again.

When he squints up, she’s standing above him, arms crossed. “C’mon.”

“What?” Sokka moans the question, wanting to just melt into the grass.

Suki jerks her chin at the retreating back of a servant. Huh. Maybe Sokka had been full asleep because he certainly hadn’t noticed that guy. “Ain came to tell us that Zuko won’t be free until dinnertime.”

“That sounds like more time to lie in the sun.”

“No-o.” Suki rolls her eyes, exasperated. “We’re going into town.”

Sokka whines. “Why would we do _that?_ Sounds like _effort.”_

“Because we have to get anniversary presents for Zuko.”

Grumbling indistinctly, Sokka rolls onto his stomach and starts to push himself up. He can’t help complaining, even as he obeys. “I thought we were just gonna, like, make him come really hard.”

“That, too,” Suki promises. “Now hurry up. We need to discuss our ideas.”

“ _Our_ ideas? Are we like, supposed to be coordinating? I’m gonna vomit if you make us all get matching pjs or something.”

That earns Sokka an elbow to the ribs. “Come _on,”_ Suki urges, as Sokka takes his sweet time standing up and stretching. “We only have a few hours until all the shops close.”

“I hear you, but we’re going to have to stop by your chambers. I can’t go out like this,” Sokka points out, crossing his arms over his bare chest. Suki heaves a sigh, rolls her eyes.

“Fine.” Looking him up and down, she smirks. “We should probably be disguised, anyway.”

“Whatever you say, babe.”

_

 _Whatever you say_ is a dangerous thing to tell Suki. It’s not that Sokka _minds_ traditional Kyoshi garb, it’s just been awhile since he’s worn it. He’s older now, taller, and finally has some muscle on his bones. His jaw is squarer.

None of that matters, because by the time Suki’s done with him, there’s a white-painted girl looking back at him in the mirror. She’s definitely taller than most women, but somehow Suki’s softened his features, and with his hair loose around his face, in that dress…

It works. He turns and smirks at Suki, who looks exceedingly self-satisfied. He bats his darkened lashes. “Am I a pretty girl?”

“You’re a beautiful girl,” Suki purrs, scratching her hand over Sokka’s head. He hums. “Ready to go?”

She’s already moving toward the door when he speaks up. “I’m good to go, but you aren’t.” She stops, lifts an eyebrow. It’s a good thing Sokka dumped his things in Suki’s quarters earlier, because everything he needs is in the sealskin bag in the corner.

“Sit,” he tells her sternly, and she takes his place in front of the mirror, bemused. With practiced fingers, Sokka picks the elaborate braids out of her hair and replaces it with a warrior’s wolftail. He braids his own feathers into it, uses the leather and beads that until very recently held his own tail in place. When he’s satisfied with the state of her braid, he heads for the corner where his crumpled bag sits. “Makeup off,” he tells her over his shoulder as he rummages through his things for a clean set of Water Tribe blues.

Suki’s boyishness is a harder sell than Sokka’s girlishness. The full-face makeup is definitely helping Sokka out, while Suki’s drowning in clothes a little bit too long or wide for her. It helps when Sokka uses her brown eyeliner to dab stubble on his girlfriend’s cheeks, although she draws the line at a moustache.

Sokka himself draws a line when Suki tries to shove a pair of his socks in her pants. “That’s just unrealistic,” Sokka complains, glaring at the offending lump between her legs. “You’re gonna give some poor Fire Nation teenager a complex.”

Rolling her eyes, Suki discards the bundle on the floor. “You’re just afraid I’m going to get a bigger strap.”

Lifting his eyebrows, Sokka thinks about that one for a second. “I wouldn’t say I’m _afraid_ of that happening…”

Together, they peer at themselves in the mirror. Suki makes for a slender, boyish warrior, and Sokka makes for a tall, squareish woman. He grins at her reflection, and she grins at his. “C’mon, pretty girl,” Suki tells him, grabbing his ass and making him yelp. “Shops are closing soon.”

Suki seems to know exactly what she wants and exactly where she’s going, which is really too bad, because Sokka loves to linger. “What about a play? He loves those.” No reaction from Suki. “What about a new set of robes?”

“It has to be something he won’t get himself.” Suki fixes Sokka with an exasperated look. “He’s the _Fire Lord,_ he can buy himself a play or a new set of robes anytime. It needs to be _special.”_

Rolling his eyes, Sokka sticks out his tongue at Suki, who doesn’t even waste a look on him. “Fine. Let’s get him a jeweled butt plug. He’d never get one for himself, and I _know_ you want one for him.”

There’s the falter in Suki’s step that he’s been looking for. Triumphant, Sokka presses on. “We could get some silk rope. To tie him up. Or…or a cock ring.” Suki’s fully stopped now, looking a little dazed in the middle of the street. Sokka smirks as he leans in to whisper right in her ear. “Don’t you think he’d look pretty, all desperate and whining, tied up in red silk with a ring on his cock? Huh?”

Suki lets out this little groan under her breath. “Okay, yes to all of that,” she mutters. “But not for our _anniversary,_ perv.”

“Fi-ine.” Suki starts walking again. Following her, Sokka realizes that his little distraction worked a little too well. Under Suki’s dress robes, he’s rock hard and he can’t stop thinking about Zuko tied up in red silk…

“Hurry up!” Suki tosses the command over her shoulder, already disappearing into the crowd. Jogging with an erection, Sokka discovers, is new on his list of least favorite activities.

_

When she shows him what she has in mind, Sokka swallows hard. Nothing he was thinking about even comes close.

“Yeah,” he manages, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah, uh…I think that’s…that’ll be good.”

“Yeah?” Suki so rarely looks unsure of herself. It’s a completely adorable look on her too, biting her lip, glancing tentatively up with those huge brown eyes.

“Yeah. Yeah.”

_

As they walk back through town, Suki takes an unfamiliar turn and leads Sokka down a street he doesn’t think he’s been down before. A few paces in, he realizes why. The painted men and women hanging out in storefronts, the items so helpfully displayed in said storefronts…

“What’s a pretty boy like you doing in a place like this?” he murmurs to Suki, mindful of how they must look to outsiders. Suki in blue trousers that somehow fit perfectly around her ass, and Sokka in his flowing green dress…he may not have much going on underneath his breastplate, but there are definitely eyes wandering to his ass, and he takes extra care to swing his hips as he walks. Sure, he doesn’t have much in the way of curves, but he’s a pretty fucking girl. Suki said so.

Speaking of Suki, she’s almost ten paces ahead of him now, and Sokka huffs as he catches up. “Seriously, you come here often?”

“What, jealous that Zuko and I get to play while you’re off traveling the world?”

“No.” A look from Suki. “Okay, maybe a little.”

Rolling her eyes, Suki grabs Sokka by the hand and leads him right up to the door of one of the shops with covered windows. What little can be advertised involves a lot of bare skin and leather. Underneath his warrior’s wear, Sokka’s getting hard, which is a bit of a problem, given the lack of cover provided by the flowing robes.

Unbothered by his plight, Suki charges right in the door and starts examining cock rings, which _really_ doesn’t help the current state of affairs. She drops her voice a few registers to sound more masculine as she speaks to the shopkeeper, and Sokka keeps quiet right up until the end, nodding or shaking his head at Suki’s question about width and material and décor.

When the shopkeeper finally hands over their purchase in a discreet little black bag, Sokka smiles sweetly at him. “Thank you,” he says, in his man’s voice, and watches the shopkeeper’s eyes go wide with surprise.

He shouldn’t have underestimated the proprietor of a sex shop. The man’s eyes go wide for only a second, and then he looks Suki up and down evaluatively and smirks over at Sokka. “I hope you enjoy your purchase, miss.”

Tui and La, why does that make Sokka hot?

_

The whole way back, Suki’s hanging on Sokka’s arm and talking dirty in his ear about how every stranger they pass must be undressing him with their eyes. When they finally, finally, _finally_ reach her chambers, Sokka slips out of the robes, more than ready to get going, and turns back around to find Suki pouring oil over their brand-new cock ring.

“What’re you doing with Zuko’s gift?”

“Sokka, sweetie. I _never_ said this was for Zuko.”

Oh. _Oh._ Sokka’s mouth goes dry. Suki smirks at him, still wearing Water Tribe warrior’s blues, still with false stubble dotted on her cheeks, and Sokka groans when she leans over him to kiss him, sandwiching his half-hard cock between their bodies.

“You ready to play, pretty girl?”

Sokka bobs his head emphatically, and Suki slips the ring over his cock. “How’s that feel?”

“G-good. Feels good.”

“Good.” Suki strokes light fingers over his cock, and Sokka gulps. “You ready to be a good girl for me?” Breathless, Sokka nods, and Suki turns to the drawer where Sokka knows she keeps the strap-on. “Get yourself ready for me, baby,” Suki calls over her shoulder, and Sokka reaches up to the table beside the bed, the drawer where they keep the sesame oil. Carefully, he slicks up his fingers and begins the awkward work of sliding his fingers into his own ass. Something about it always makes him blush, and Suki nods approvingly when she sees him pink and gasping at the feel of his own fingers.

“That’s my girl,” she croons, sidling up to the bed to run her hand over Sokka’s head. She tugs on his braids, pulling his head back so his throat is exposed to her lips, her tongue, her teeth. When Sokka’s fingers falter, she nips him in reproach. “Keep going, princess.” Sokka squeezes his eyes shut. “Keep working yourself open for me.”

The strap-on is just big enough that even after three fingers, it’s a delicious stretch. It burns just a little, and Sokka groans as Suki sinks into him, lighting up every nerve ending in his body. She keeps pulling on his braids, making him expose his throat and arch his back, and when he arcs up against her, the strap-on hits that perfect place inside him and Sokka sees _stars –_

And the ring is suddenly _so tight_ around his cock.

As she pounds into him, Suki strokes Sokka’s chest and pulls his hair and kisses his jaw and she isn’t even touching his cock but he swears he’s harder than he’s ever been. “Good girl,” Suki keeps whispering, right up against his burning skin. “Good girl, pretty girl, that’s my girl. Take it so good, sweetie, just like that. Remember the shopkeepers? Remember all the men in town? What a pretty girl you were for them.”

Sokka’s whining, rocking his hips up against Suki, desperate for more friction, an answer to the electricity inside him. “Please,” he begs, “please, please, please, Suki, please, I wanna come, I wanna – please-”

“You beg so pretty for me, baby,” Suki murmurs, nipping her way up Sokka’s jaw. “You wanna come, huh? You want me to get up on your pretty, pretty cock?”

Sokka bobs his head frantically and Suki smirks. She draws out of him, leaving him gasping, already feeling empty, and then, without taking the cock ring off, she straddles him and sinks down on his cock.

Even self-controlled Suki groans as she sinks down on Sokka, and the warrior himself can’t decide if the feeling is heaven or pure torture. She’s _hot_ and _wet_ and _tight_ and he’s harder than he’s ever been –

And he can’t fucking _come._ Suki rocks above him and Sokka _wails,_ feeling himself pulse and clench and press up desperately into her. “Goo-ood girl,” Suki mumbles, sounding dazed, dizzy, as she grinds down on Sokka’s cock. “Just…just like that, honey.”

Sokka can only pant and gaze up at her hopefully as Suki bounces on his trapped cock, her eyes rolling back in her head as the angle brings him deep inside her. Finally, finally, after what feels like an age, she stops herself, panting, hands braced on Sokka’s chest. “You ready for me to take the ring off, baby girl?”

Sokka nods frantically, almost crying with the anticipation. Instead of reaching for his cock, Suki climbs off and moves up towards his face. “Gonna take a second for you to calm down so I can get that off,” she tells him softly, running her hand through his hair. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna keep you busy in the meantime.”

She moves up so his head is between her thighs, and Sokka knows exactly what she wants. He grabs her ass to hold her in place and licks right into the hot, pulsing center of her. Suki’s already soaking wet from her time riding him, and she lets out a yell, buries her fingers in his hair as Sokka wastes no time suckling directly on her clit. When her hands are fisted in his hair so tight it makes his scalp ache, Sokka backs off a little, pressing his tongue in broad, long licks around her entrance. Slowly, the ragged panting above him takes a more regular rhythm, until Suki’s all but humping his mouth, demanding more, more.

Sokka’s patient for minutes, and then he finally pulls back, licking his lips and smiling up at her. “Don’t you wanna come on my cock?”

Breathless, Suki looks down at him for a long moment, considering. She smooths his hair back and he cranes his neck to press into the touch. “You’re demanding, you know that, sweetness? You’re a needy little thing.”

Sokka just smiles up at her in this hopeful way that he knows she finds endearing. Rolling her eyes, Suki reaches back to slide the ring off his softened cock. Sokka could almost believe her feigned reluctance, if she wasn’t scrambling to position herself over him.

When she sinks down on his cock for the second time, Sokka’s eyes roll back in his head. For a second he thinks he’s going to blow immediately, like an overstimulated teenager, but Suki waits a few crucial seconds before she rolls her hips against him, and it gives him the time he needs to drag himself back from the edge.

Then Suki starts up a consistent rhythm and neither of them can speak. Even Suki, master of dirty-talking through every orgasm, can hardly _breathe_ as she rocks herself up and down on Sokka’s cock. Reaching up, Sokka pulls her down toward him and kisses her hungrily. One hand comes up to grab her chest and thumb at a nipple, the other scratches down her back. It sends Suki over the edge. She stiffens and gasps and grinds down _hard_ against Sokka, chasing that almost too good feeling of overstimulation as her body tenses and clenches down around Sokka, which sends _him_ over the edge, bucking up into her, holding on hard, both of them gasping –

Suki collapses over Sokka, still panting, pussy still contracting like she’s trying to milk the life out of Sokka. One arm comes up to flop over Suki’s shoulders, although Sokka is still too dazed to actually hold her. “Fuck,” Suki breathes, and Sokka nods his vehement agreement.

They lay like that for awhile, getting their breath back. “You know…” Suki has to stifle a yawn. “You know, you make a very pretty girl.”

“I make a very pretty everything, thank you very much.”

Suki swats him on the arm, but there’s no strength behind it. She’s tucked solidly against his chest, besides. “We should really get cleaned up,” she tells him, swallowing another yawn.

“Mmm.”

“We have…we have dinner with Zuko soon.”

“Mmm.”

“Are you just gonna keep agreeing to what I say and then not moving?”

“Hey, you’re not moving either.”

Suki sighs. “…mmm.”

They really should get cleaned up and dressed in their proper clothes and ready for dinner with Zuko. But Sokka can’t bring himself to move just yet. Instead he pulls Suki tighter against him and shuts his eyes and pretends there’s nothing in the world but the room they’re in. It feels right.


	2. and you might be a little bit bruised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Zuko and Suki's turn to go shopping for Sokka!
> 
> And to have a little fun afterwards, of course.

Even though he spends every second he can with them, Sokka isn’t in Caldera City all that often. When he is around, he spends every minute he can with Suki or Zuko or, preferably, both. This doesn’t make it easy to carve out time to buy him a present. Thankfully, Suki has Uncle Iroh on her side. In a strange turn of events, Sokka’s old teacher, Piandao, is in the city, and of course he wants an afternoon with his strange, one-off Water Tribe student. Barely is Sokka out the door, headed to this reunion, before Suki is bursting into Zuko’s chamber.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!”

It’s a testament to how much he trusts her, how well he knows her voice, that this sudden, alarming entrance doesn’t scare Zuko half to death. Instead, he tips his head forward, letting his completely dorky, completely adorable reading glasses slide down his nose so he can peer over them. “What’s up?”

“What’s _up_ is that we need to go get a gift for Sokka.”

Zuko smiles, soft, pleased. “Okay. Any particular reason?”

“It’s our _anniversary_ next week, dumbass.”

“Oh! Oh.” For some reason Zuko looks unsure of himself, and as desperate as Suki is to take advantage of the little time they have, she pauses to figure out why. Because it’s her, and because it’s Zuko, she pretty much just tips her head and it all comes spilling out.

“Just, like. What day, is it? Your anniversary? So I don’t, um, bother you guys, if you want to be alone, or-”

 _“Zuko.”_ He glances over, looking self-conscious. “It’s _our_ anniversary. The three of us. Sokka, and me, and _you.”_

 _“Ohhh.”_ Zuko goes pink. “O-oh. I, um. I didn’t…I didn’t realize…”

“Didn’t realize it had been a full year? Time flies when you’re having fun.” Suki’s kidding, but the smile on Zuko’s face is so genuine it melts her heart. He’s still standing behind his desk, so Suki drags him messily around it so she can hug him properly. “You’re adorable,” she mumbles into his ear because she can and because it’s true.

Pulling away, Zuko rolls his eyes, as if that will mask the way he’s blushing. “We probably don’t have much time,” he reminds her. “We should get going. It’s lucky that Piandao was in the city-” He stops, blinks, and stares at the sly smile curving up Suki’s face. “Did you…did you get Piandao here just so-”

“Just so he could distract Sokka while you and I shop?” Suki feigns wide-eyed innocence. “No way!”

“I know that smile,” Zuko tells her, as Suki spins on her heel, smirking. “I don’t know what you did, but you did something.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Suki bats her eyelashes, “Now hurry up! If you don’t want girls chasing you through the marketplace, we need to put a disguise on you.”

Zuko flushes. “That doesn’t happen.”

“You’re right. It’s boys, too.”

Behind her, Zuko mumbles some protest that Suki ignores. While there are plenty of old conservatives that are mad about the end of the war, the Fire Lord’s progressive policies have won him more than a few hearts. His looks don’t hurt, either. Not to mention the fact that he’s still officially single…

Tearing through her wardrobe, Suki holds up a Kyoshi warrior gown. “Care to be a guardswoman with me?” Zuko shakes his head, and she keeps looking. “What, do you want to be a nobleman? Water Tribesman? I think you’d look good in pink…”

“Can’t I just be, like, a palace servant?” There’s a whiny note in Zuko’s voice, and that just makes her all the more determined. In the back of her closet, Suki uncovers a leather vest she’d forgotten she had, and starts to smile, an idea taking shape in her head.

“You absolutely cannot be,” she tells him, turning to face him with a devilish gleam in her eye. “Now sit down. We have work to do.”

_

“I cannot leave the palace looking like this.”

Suki smirks. Zuko can’t tear his eyes away from the mirror, however much he protests.

“I look ridiculous!”

She meets his eyes in the mirror and watches him blush. “Ridiculously sexy,” she purrs, and he glares at her but there’s no heat in his narrowed eyes.

“What even am I supposed to _be?”_

“Pirate!” answers Suki readily. And it is a pirate outfit…sort of. Suki isn’t willing to bet that he has much fighting ability, given how tight her leather pants proved to be on him. They’re _essential_ to the outfit though, which Suki needs to wear herself the next chance she has, because _fuck._

“I look like a _prostitute.”_

Well, the flowy white silk shirt she has him in does have a v neck that almost touches his belly button, and she refuses to let him close the vest over it.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a prostitute,” Suki retorts, and Zuko growls.

“No, there isn’t, but I’m _not one.”_

He can gripe all he wants, Suki sees the way he reaches up to finger the single gold earring, brush over the eyeliner that brings out his eyes. “Come on,” Suki goads, tugging him toward the door. “We need to get into town before the shops close!”

“O-okay but – but – hey, wait what are you disguised as?”

Suki can’t help the smirk that spreads over her face. “Palace servant.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

_

Outside the palace, Suki watches with satisfaction as the pair of them turn heads. Oh, she definitely gets some appreciative looks, but the real focus is the boy behind her. A handful of men, twice as many women, and just about every teenager they pass swivel their heads to watch Zuko as he walks by, and while he blushes, Suki preens at the validation. “Don’t blush,” she reminds the Fire Lord, who looks nothing short of alarmed by the attention. “It’ll ruin your look.”

He settles for a glare, all but crushing her fingers in his nervous grip, and she smiles sweetly back at him, plunging forward through the city. Just once, Zuko tries to resist, stop at a store he knows Sokka likes. “We could get him a new set of daggers,” he tells Suki, who lifts a skeptical eyebrow.

“Weapons don’t exactly say ‘I love you,’” she points out with an eyeroll.

“Well…yeah, but he likes pretty weapons.” Zuko’s jaw juts out stubbornly. “And he likes learning new fighting styles, and there’s this group in the Fire Islands that uses daggers. He could learn when we visit up there in the summer.”

Charmed, Suki smiles. “That’s very thoughtful of you, but I have other plans.”

Zuko lifts a skeptical eyebrow. “Are you just trying to parade me through the entire city in this outfit?”

Once again, Suki scans him up and down, and allows herself another proud smile. Under her gaze, Zuko fidgets and glares. “No,” she tells him brightly. “I have a real idea. Now c’mon – keep up. Stop making eyes at all the girls.”

“I am _not_ making-”

Merrily, Suki tugs him along after her, as he splutters protests.

The indignation doesn’t melt away until they’re in the shop – probably because Zuko is still all but squirming in his outfit. For a man accustomed to the long ceremonial robes befitting the Fire Lord, the billowy shirt and the ultra-tight pants are more revealing than anything he’s worn in a long time. The pirate outfit is pushing it, but Suki knows her boy well enough. She can tell that under his scowls and glares he’s taking a tiny, cautious amount of wonder from all the people watching him, eyeing him appreciatively. Still, it’s overwhelming. He’s ready for a break by the time they reach the shop, and though the shopkeeper’s eyes widen, it’s almost imperceptible. They’re professionals here.

“I’m here to show him the piece we discussed?”

The shopkeeper’s head tips as he examines Suki in her nondescript robes, and then the recognition. “Ah, Commander Suki. Of course.” He gives her a respectful nod, offers nothing to her curiously dressed partner, though his eyes linger on the young man, perhaps sensing some familiarity there.

He disappears into the back and Zuko turns, scowling, to Suki. “How did he not recognize _you?_ ” he demands, apparently still sulking about his outfit. “You’re not wearing a disguise. Don’t tell me palace linens are a disguise.”

“It _is_ a disguise,” Suki replies primly, turning her nose up. “People don’t pay attention to uniforms, whether it’s Kyoshi or palace servant.”

“Okay, so I could have been a place servant, too.”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because.” Suki looks up at him, face deadly serious. “You look _very_ good right now.”

Scowling, Zuko opens his mouth to respond, but the shopkeeper emerges from the back with a bamboo box, and he swallows his retort, which was, to be honest, a little juvenile, anyway.

Besides, after he sees what’s in the box, he doesn’t have much else to say, besides _yes._

_

They get back to the palace in late afternoon, long golden light slanting through all the floor-to-ceiling windows. They’re a little out of breath, darting through the palace surreptitiously, glancing around every corner for Sokka. If he sees Zuko in this outfit, he’ll have questions. If he sees Zuko’s ass in those pants, he’s going to want to do more than ask questions.

But they keep…not running into Sokka, and finally Suki grabs a passing servant and asks where he is. The servant helpfully keeps his eyes directed away from Zuko as he answers, and Suki isn’t sure which one of them is more embarrassed. Once they hear the news that Sokka hasn’t returned yet from his afternoon with Piandao, Suki relaxes, starts moving more casually toward the royal bedchamber. Zuko, on the other hand, keeps trotting awkwardly through the halls.

Rolling her eyes, Suki calls after him. “What’s the rush?”

“This _outfit!”_ His voice sounds strangled, even from behind, and Suki can’t help grinning. Watching his ass in those leather pants…Suki lets a little grin spread across her face and she saunters after him.

By the time she makes it into the royal bedroom, he’s already dragging her pants off. Or, trying to at least. That leather is _tight,_ and he’s peeling at it with fingers that are a little too eager. Sneaking up behind him, Suki wraps him in a tight hug, pinning his arms against his torso. He growls, and she can’t see his face, but she can imagine the frustration on it as he gives his arms a shake. Thanks to her warrior training, Suki can easily resist, and Zuko lets out an exasperated groan. “Suki let _go.”_

“No, no, no, c’mon.” She giggles as she circles around him, grabbing his hands again as soon as they’re facing each other. He doesn’t look happy, but he lifts an eyebrow, at least willing to hear her out. Grinning, Suki looks him up and down again. “Spirits, Zuko, you look good.”

“I look stupid. Everyone was staring at me!”

Smirking, Suki steps closer, bringing their clasped hands up until they’re trapped between their bodies. “That is _not_ why everyone was staring at you.” She murmurs it against the thin skin of Zuko’s neck, and she doesn’t need to look up at his cheeks to see that he’s blushing.

“Well…well, whatever!” He huffs it, right down into her hair, and she giggles again. Despite himself, Zuko starts to relax. Good, that’s good. She really, _really_ wants him to agree with what she has planned, and she can tell it’s going to be a bit of a hard sell.

“Listen…” she chances it, letting go of one hand to trace a fingertip down from his cheekbone all the way to his sternum. “Can I ask you a favor?”

He softens, the way she knew he would. “Of course.”

“Okay…okay, just hear me out. Hear me out, okay? Please leave the outfit on.”

“Suki, no!”

“Please? Please, please, please, please. For me?”

He glowers down at her, but she’s still pressed up against his chest, looking pleadingly up at him in a way that she knows makes her eyes look big. And he isn’t pushing her away.

“Suki, what – why do you want me to wear this?”

Now Suki takes a step back to look him up and down, grinning. “You look _so good,”_ she breathes, and there’s that blush again. “You look so good. I want…I just want…” Biting her lip, Suki stands up on her tiptoes and murmurs into Zuko’s ear.

First, he goes red, and then he coughs. He squirms in the leather pants, which, okay, probably aren’t comfortable.

But in the end, Zuko agrees. And despite his rolled eyes, Suki can see him smiling almost as big as she is.

_

The blindfold is soft on Suki’s skin – silken, smooth. She shut her eyes when it was first tied over her face, but even now when she opens them, she can’t see a thing. Grinning, she flexes her shoulders, tests her bonds, and finds they resist her efforts just as well as the blindfold does. Biting her lip, she wiggles against the mattress, already growing impatient. She has no idea how long it’s been, but it feels like forever.

Then – a touch.

It’s a lingering brush of fingertips against her thigh, and she can’t help the hitch in her breath. There’s no sound from the room around her, though she strains her ears to hear. There’s nothing. Then another touch, this time, knuckles running down the side of her face. Suki doesn’t make a sound, but she knows that her swallow is visible.

She’s not wearing her warrior’s robes, because she’d been disguised as a palace servant, so there are no clasps or buttons or complicated ties to undo. Just one moment she’s wearing a shirt, and the next, slender fingers are pushing it up over her chest, to puddle around her arms. Now those same long fingers trace patterns over the skin of her stomach, and Suki writhes against her bonds, not knowing if she wants to press into it or squirm away. The helplessness, the not knowing where he is…it’s lighting a fire in her belly. Despite herself, Suki moans. There’s a light chuckle in the air above her, and she smiles.

Then the hands are on her pants, slipping them down over her hips, and she bites her lip to mask a grin. He taps her hipbone twice with one tentative pointer finger, asking without speaking, and she nods decisively. With a barely audible sigh, he peels her loose trouser off her, and Suki smirks at his sharp inhale.

“No panties?” He sounds drily amused, like he’s probably rolling his eyes, but there’s something about not being able to see him makes it hot no matter what he’s saying.

“What can I say?” Suki purrs. “I was ready for you.”

She _knows_ he has to be turning scarlet, but she can’t see him so she waits with bated breath to see if he’ll take her cue, play a little.

“Well then. I don’t want to keep you waiting.”

His voice is husky, low, and there’s an edge of awkwardness but Suki ignores it. Besides, the next second she feels hot breath ghosting over her collarbone, and suddenly all she can focus on is every foreign unseen sensation against her skin. It feels like every nerve is alive and waiting for him.

Then he’s kissing her jaw, under her right ear, quick and hungry little nipping kisses that she knows will leave a mark. When she presses up against the touch, moaning, his mouth disappears, and then he’s kissing down her other side, from her collarbone down over her left breast, and she catches her breath and tries to hold still so he won’t disappear again. He slots one leg between hers and leans in close, so she can feel the line of his body against her, just above her, but they aren’t actually touching. She pulls on the ties that bind her arms hard enough that the bedframe creaks, and under his breath, Zuko chuckles.

This time he lingers over her chest for a while, kissing on one side while his fingers play over the other. Then Suki realizes she’s pressing up against the leg slotted between hers, and as soon as she realizes, he’s pushing up off her, and she can’t hold back the frustrated growl that erupts between her lips.

“Ah, ah, ah.” It’s probably just because she can’t see him, but he sounds so different, so darkly amused. Excitement coils through her stomach. “Patience.”

“I don’t _want_ to be patient.”

“Try.”

He breathes it right against her ear, and Suki can’t stop a gasp – she hadn’t even felt him move. “ _Spirits,_ are you some kind of ninja?”

“I think,” he drawls, tracing a finger over her chest, “that I’m supposed to be a pirate.” His fingertips circle her nipples, not quite touching, and Suki moans.

Then his mouth is between her legs and Suki bites her lip so hard she can almost taste blood. She’s already turned on by the mystery and the excitement and all the kissing down her body, and Zuko wastes no time licking, sucking, circling her clit with a hot and practiced tongue. Soon, she can’t stop herself, she’s pushing up into his touch, panting for it, seeing stars behind the blindfold –

And then he stops, pulls back entirely, right when she’s teetering on the edge of her orgasm. Suki wails. Kicking out with her legs, all she finds is air, until two strong hands pin her thighs “Ah, ah, ah.” He clicks his tongue at her like she’s a fractious child, and behind her blindfold, Suki glares. “Remember what I said about patience?”

Hands still pinning her thighs, he leans down and licks just once, tongue broad and flat over her entrance and her clit, stimulation enough to make her gasp but not enough to do much more. He keeps it up, long broad frustrating licks, and then just enough suction right over her clit to make her writhe uselessly against the sheets.

Once, twice, three times, Suki comes so close to climax that she’s gasping, twisting, hauling so hard on the ties around her wrists that the bedframe shakes. Once, twice, three times Zuko pulls back, lets her fall back, slowly, agonizingly, to a constant level of low, insistent, buzzing arousal. On the last round, Suki howls so loudly that Zuko puts a hand over her mouth, muffling her cry, and the rough, matter-of-fact way he handles her just makes Suki want him more.

When she’s finally just panting again, Zuko removes his hand. “You want something?” he asks, and Suki nods frantically, still gasping. “Tell me what you want.”

“Fuck me, please, please, please,” she babbles, lifting her hips in a futile attempt to grind against him. “C’mon, please, c’mon, Zuko-”

“All right.”

The relief that sweeps through Suki is intoxicating, heady, and she wonders when it got so real, when she started doubting he would give her what she wants.

“But I want you to look at me.”

By the time she nods, his nimble fingers are already working on the knot behind her head. When the fabric first comes off, she’s squinting, but the curtains have been pulled across the high windows, and the room is dim enough that her eyes adjust quickly.

Zuko is above her, eyes still framed in eyeliner, hair loose and shaggy about his head, in leather vest and leather pants and looking somehow wild and somehow strange and somehow so utterly fierce. Suki swallows hard, staring up at him.

He lifts an eyebrow, and she nods, the intensity in his golden eyes telling her not to speak. His pants must already be open because he lines himself up, and Suki flushes, feeling the slide of leather against her legs. She’s completely bare before him, and he’s still fully dressed. It’s a delicious vulnerability, on par with the way her arms are pinned above her head and all she can do is hold her breath and watch him with eyes as wide as saucers.

His length presses against her, and Suki’s breath hitches. He rocks into her, just a little, and the muscles in her shoulders bunch as Suki tips her head back, groaning, still trying to break free of the ties that hold her back. Leaning over her, Zuko fixes her in place with that intense, serious, focused look in his eyes, and he slides the rest of the way in with one hard thrust. Suki’s eyes roll back in her head – against her oversensitive clit, it feels like fire, like ecstasy, like lightning. For a few bizarre seconds, she truly thinks that this alone might be enough to send her over the edge – the fullness, the closeness, the delicious stimulation. Suki can’t decide if she’s grateful or furious that Zuko waits a few long seconds, until her breath has returned to her throat, before he starts to move.

When he does though – when he does –

It’s hard and fast and Suki’s gasping, arching up against the feeling. Her eyes fall shut and she presses her hips up, up against him, feeling like, feeling like –

He keeps up the same insistent pace, and Suki’s eyelids flutter as she tries to regulate her breathing – but she just keeps gasping – but the feeling is just getting quicker, faster, harder, like electricity dancing across her skin, like a wave sweeping over her.

Suki comes _hard,_ writhing against the mattress, all but wailing, and Zuko keeps up his quick, steady rhythm, sending Suki over another edge so fast she hardly knows what’s happening. “Z-Zuko!”

It’s wrenched out of her, breathless and desperate, and it’s after this second climax, at the sound of her voice gasping his name, that he comes, still holding himself rigid over her as he pants through his orgasm.

“Fuck,” Suki gasps when she can breathe again, “Zuko, _fuck.”_

His hand is so utterly gentle as he brushes her hair back from her sweaty forehead, that for one stunned, embarrassing second, Suki feels tears well in her eyes. “How was that?”

He’s so soft, so sweet with her, and Suki melts looking up at him, seeing his serious, intense, scowling mask dissolve into a familiar hopeful smile. “Zuko, that was…” she heaves out a contented sigh, letting her eyes fall shut again. “It was…” she squirms against the mattress, remembering.

“That good, huh?”

She giggles, eyes still shut. “Yeah. That good.”

“Good.” She can hear the satisfaction in his voice, the relief. “Let’s get you untied.” She giggles again, tugging at the bonds yet again, lazily this time. “Patience,” Zuko lectures in a fake-serious voice, and Suki dissolves into giggling again. “Someone is in quite a mood,” he notes, and Suki grins behind her eyes at him, feeling his capable fingers on the knots that hold her wrists. In the next few moments, her arms are released, and as she releases her arms down to her sides, she knows she’ll be sore tomorrow. The thought earns another smirk, and Zuko chuckles.

“What now?”

“Just, I’ll be sore tomorrow.”

His lips pull down in a frown. “I’m so sorry – Suki, I’m so sorry. I can give you a massage-”

“Zuko, no-o.” Suki rolls her eyes, still grinning. “Don’t be silly. It’ll be good sore.”

“Good sore?”

Zuko looks doubtful.

“Good sore,” Suki confirms with a decisive nod.

“If you say so.” Zuko shakes his head, goes back to quietly cleaning the room around her, getting a wet towel to clean up Suki herself. Suki knows she should get up, help out, maybe give Zuko a hand as he peels her pants off himself, scowling. But for now she’s so deliciously sleepy…and the bed is so soft…and Zuko is moving back towards her, ducking his head, smiling. Suki holds out her arms, and he snuggles in next to her, and she buries her face in his neck, once again familiar, and almost instantly, falls asleep.


	3. but baby how we spoon like no one else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get things DONE.
> 
> In their own way.
> 
> With their own brand of fun...

It’s almost too easy to get away from Suki – sure, she has security meetings, and personnel interviews, and warrior training, and it’s far from unheard of for her to have a busy afternoon…but the smile she aims at Zuko is just a little too close to a smirk. It seems less friendly and more knowing. There’s also the fact that usually she clears all her obligations when Sokka’s visiting. And, well, she makes sure to tell the boys two days in advance that she’ll be busy. She slyly suggests they go out shopping. She might as well draw them a _map,_ at this rate. And she knows it’s their anniversary soon, she’s even the one that told Zuko.

Stubbornly, foolishly, he holds out hope that it’s all some crazy coincidence. At least, he holds out hope until he and Sokka are sneaking out of the palace together, dressed in drab linens as palace servants.

“Does she know we’re shopping for her?”

It’s only been ten minutes that they’re alone together, but Zuko can’t resist the nagging question, even though he’s pretty sure he knows the answer.

“Oh, definitely.” Sokka sounds completely unbothered. He’s holding hands with Zuko, swinging along merrily, while the other hand dips into his pocket for Zankan cherries he’d picked in the palace gardens. When they left Zuko’s room, the leather pouch was full. Now the edges of Sokka’s lips are stained deep red, and his cheek is swollen with pits that he’s saving in his gums until he can spit them on the street outside. The fruits are disappearing with alarming speed.

“Really?” Zuko can’t help sounding crestfallen. He wants to surprise Zuko, he really does. When Sokka hears that wistful tone, his face goes all soft; he squeezes Zuko’s hand tighter.

“No, no, she doesn’t know.”

Zuko glances sideways at Sokka. “…really?”

Sokka’s earnest expression dissolves, and he snickers, jabs Zuko in the rib with one elbow. “No, she knows. She definitely knows. It’ll still be _fun_ though.”

“Yeah,” Zuko admits, smile creeping up his face. “It’ll still be fun.” He squeezes Sokka’s hand, and then drifts closer, closer. He glances over to find Sokka rolling his eyes in a false show of irritation. Really, the Water Tribe warrior is more than happy to tuck Zuko under his arm and pull him close. The Fire Lord wraps his arm around Sokka’s waist and turns his face into Sokka’s side for just a second to hide his huge, ridiculous smile.

They march down the street like that, in lockstep, with Zuko smiling like a little kid at the way their feet strike the ground together. Oh, he _likes_ this, he likes Sokka, having Sokka close, the two of them sneaking out to do something for Suki. Even when the Water Tribe warrior turns his face to the side and spits cherry pits from his bulging cheeks like some kind of demented tiger monkey. Even then, Zuko finds himself feeling hopelessly fond of his boyfriend. That’s love, the Fire Lord supposes – unreasonable and undignified and absolutely unconditional.

Wow, so the anniversary really is turning him into an incurable sap.

As if he can sense Zuko’s moony thoughts, Sokka aims a purple-stained grin at the firebender. “Someone’s feeling cuddly,” he observes, jostling a little with the arm wrapped around his shoulder. Unhelpfully, Zuko shrugs instead of answering, liking the way his shoulder drags up and down against the warm heavy fact of Sokka, right there at his side.

“C’mon, talk to me!” Sokka’s chiding voice does Zuko in, and he sighs, trying to find words for all the bulky difficult feelings he finds welling up inside him.

He settles on the simplest. “I’m just really glad you’re here.”

“Well so am I! The Fire Nation’s beautiful, and the company…” A wink, aimed at Zuko, and the flush in the firebender’s cheeks is answer enough. Sokka laughs, but when Zuko ducks his head again, he keeps prodding. “Okay, c’mon, what’s u-up?” The combination of his pleading voice and puppy dog eyes finally tip Zuko over the edge.

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “Just…I’m happy you’re here. And it’s…I don’t know. A year.” He can’t sound nonchalant about it, even if he tried, and frankly, Zuko doesn’t want to try. The note of awe in his voice is entirely genuine. The smile that threatens to reach his _ears_ makes his cheeks go pink but that can’t be helped, either.

When he dares to glance over, Sokka is biting his lip, smiling hard. “You’re _adorable,”_ the warrior tells the sky, and Zuko knows the feeling of not being able to look at someone because the feeling is so big it’s almost unbearable. He fixes his own gaze on their boots, still in matching stride, and presses closer against Sokka, makes an agreeing sort of noise. “If you’re happy you don’t have to be so _quiet_ about it,” Sokka informs him, giving his shoulders another squeeze. “I’d be happy to celebrate with you.” Zuko glances up just in time to catch Sokka’s fake-lecherous wink.

“Sokka!” Zuko doesn’t have to fake the affront in his voice, the red in his cheeks for an entirely new reason. “We’re in public!”

“ _I_ meant that we could stop for a celebratory drink.” Sokka’s voice is all false high-mindedness. “I don’t know where _your_ mind went, Your Highness, but frankly, I’m scandalized.”

“Oh, shut up,” Zuko grumbles, planting his hands in Sokka’s side and shoving him so he goes stumbling a few steps away. His warrior adopts a fake-wounded expression, but it’s all the less convincing because as he stumbles back to his full feet, he’s already ambling back towards Zuko, the two of them fitting together like they’re magnetized.

“Where are we headed, anyway?” Sokka asks the question as they bump back together, because Zuko’s tugging him down a side street and it’s clear for the first time that they have a direction. “Are we just looking, because I actually kinda had an idea…”

Zuko makes a face. “Well…I also had an idea.” He glances over, sees Sokka making a reluctant face of his own.

“Okay…but my idea is really good.”

“Hey, my idea is really good too!”

Sokka hums. “Okay, okay, I hear you.” A moment’s pause between them. “But my idea is like, _really_ good.”

“Okay, and my idea is better.”

“How do you know it’s better? You haven’t even heard mine!”

“Well you haven’t heard mine either!”

Sokka shoots Zuko a superior look. “But I didn’t immediately assume that my idea was better,” he points out.

Rolling his eyes, Zuko keeps steering Sokka along, and to his credit, Sokka doesn’t resist. “Well, mine is better. Trust me.”

“I am! I’m following you!”

“Okay, good.”

“But-”

“No _but!”_

“ _But,_ the place I want to go is right near yours, I think, so I’m only going to see your thing if you’ll agree to check out mine right after.”

Zuko heaves a huge, exaggerated sigh. “Fine. But I’m pretty sure we won’t have to. Because my thing is perfect.”

“Sure it is.”

_

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So we had the same…the same thing. The same idea.”

“Yeah, looks that way.”

“Y’know, this is really Suki’s fault.”

“ _Definitely_ Suki’s fault.”

_

The boys are walking back, purchase in hand, a rare, satisfied quiet between them. For Sokka, it probably has to do with having gone shopping – the boy cannot _resist_ buying pretty things, especially when they’re gifts intended for the people he loves. Sokka catches Zuko smiling, and asks him why, and Zuko explains, perhaps using the word _shopaholic._

And that’s probably why Sokka steers him down what he refers to, completely juvenile, as _the sex street._ Zuko’s been here a half a dozen times with Suki, and somehow he’s never blushed as much as when Sokka is next to him, snickering like a kid. “Shut up,” he keeps muttering, jabbing Sokka in the ribs with one elbow. “Could you please shut _up?”_

“No,” Sokka replies proudly, and his arm around Zuko’s waist starts to drift downwards.

“Don’t you _dare,”_ Zuko hisses, skittering away from Sokka for the first time all afternoon. It’s one thing to walk down the street with their arms wrapped around each other, which is already corny enough. If Sokka tries to grab his butt, Zuko will up and die of embarrassment. “Why are we even here?” he whines, more than ready to get off this street and, if he’s honest, back to his room in the palace, where he’ll be a lot more free with where Sokka can put his hands.

But Sokka won’t budge, just keeps hauling Zuko down the street toward some shop Suki’s shown him. Then, once they get there, he makes Zuko wait _outside,_ which he does, glowering. When Sokka emerges, he has a new bag in his hand, and Zuko’s too deep in pretending to be annoyed to ask to look inside it to see what Sokka bought.

Even though he really, really wants to know.

_

When Sokka finally does reveal his purchase, back in Zuko’s chambers, in quite dramatic style, Zuko just squints at it in silence for a few minutes. He tips his head to one side, glancing to Sokka for an explanation. Funnily enough, it’s the tribesman who’s turning pink now.

“Don’t-don’t tell me you don’t know what it is,” Sokka stammers, the little thing gleaming innocuously in his palm. “C’mon, Zuko, it’s a…it’s a butt plug.”

“A…butt plug?”

“You…you put it in your ass,” Sokka mutters, seeming to find this way less fun now that he has to spell it out.

“Huh.” Zuko plucks it out of Sokka’s hand, lets the strange solid weight of it roll around his palm. “And it’s for me?”

“I, uh…” Sokka scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah?”

Zuko arches an eyebrow. “You could at least kiss a guy first.”

Rolling his eyes, Sokka leans forward, presses his lips against Zuko’s. Zuko grins against him, tossing the plug on the bed behind him and bringing his hands up to frame Sokka’s face, pull him closer. They’re both in loose linens, having opted for low-key disguises, and as one of Sokka’s hands cups the back of Zuko’s head, the other starts tugging at the drawstring of Zuko’s loose trousers.

“Damn, you’re impatient,” Zuko breathes, pulling back, and Sokka just snorts in lieu of a response. His fingers are knotted in Zuko’s hair and he tugs just a little to guide Zuko’s head back so his mouth can trail down the firebender’s throat, stopping only when the neck of Zuko’s shirt interrupts his progress. The feeling of that tug in his scalp, Sokka’s insistent lips…Zuko feels his eyelids flutter; he can’t help biting his lip.

“Shirt,” Sokka orders, suddenly all business, and Zuko obeys eagerly, stripping it off and sitting down on the bed, where Sokka pushes him the rest of the way over to mouth hungrily at his chest, following every spike of the starburst scar at Zuko’s center. The nerve endings there aren’t quite as dead as the ones around his eye, and Zuko feels the kisses as a warm, alien pressure that only feeds the heat inside of him.

Sokka keeps going, down to where Zuko’s trousers sit low on his hipbones. He draws them down and Zuko’s cock springs free, fully at attention. Up on his elbows, Zuko swallows hard as he watches Sokka. When his boyfriend’s mouth closes over the head of his cock, his eyes fall shut of their own accord, his head tips back, a breathless moan pushes out of him. Not content to work with only his mouth, Sokka snaps his fingers, gesturing for the jar Zuko keeps on the nightstand. It’s no easy thing, stretching out his entire body to reach for the oil, especially while Sokka refuses to stop…ahem… _distracting_ him, but Zuko grabs the slender neck of the jar with shaking fingers, almost sending it crashing to the ground as he does.

It’s worth it for the way it feels a minute later, when Sokka’s oiled fingers start working their way inside him.

When Sokka slips in a third finger, all the while taking Zuko’s cock almost down his throat, Zuko can’t wait any longer. Now it’s his turn to grab Sokka’s hair with both hands, haul the warrior insistently upward. He kisses Sokka hard, hungrily, even as his entire body sings with the need for release, demands that he grind his lower half hard against the man draped on top of him. When he stops for air, Sokka finds the time to protest.

“Hey – h-hey, I was in the middle of something.”

Tipping his head to one side, Zuko finds in himself just enough restraint to be coy. “Well, where is it?”

“Where is _what?”_

“The plug.”

Sokka’s face goes blank as he cycles through confusion, surprise, even trepidation. “I thought…I mean, I didn’t think…”

In answer, Zuko merely quirks an eyebrow, and Sokka swallows hard, nods, scans the messy tangle of sheets for the telltale glint of metal. He finds it, holds it up with a question in his eyes. Heart thrumming hard in his chest, Zuko nods his yes.

The weight is a strange, foreign presence inside him, a little chilly at first, but warming quickly in the furnace of his body. Sokka slides it in gentle, kissing Zuko’s thigh as he does, teasing the Fire Lord with the widest part of the bulb before letting it slidre all the way in. The firebender groans and twists and pants as Sokka takes his time sinking it in, but when the plug is seated inside Zuko’s body, Sokka has another thing coming.

Now Zuko pulls Sokka up next to him again, but this time he’s flipping the script, pinning Sokka to the bed while he kisses his throat hard enough to leave deep red clouded marks. He bares his teeth down at the warrior, a little too wild to be a smile, and fairly tears the warrior’s trousers off when he gets to the place between Sokka’s legs.

He won’t touch Sokka’s cock at all, not even when the warrior curses and begs, just kisses around it teasingly while his fingers open his boyfriend up, careful but quick. When Sokka begs, his voice breaking just a little, Zuko lowers his mouth so the warrior can feel his hot breath on the sensitive skin of his dick, and then his tongue descends to his boyfriend’s hole instead. The strangled shout that comes from Sokka then is loud but strangely cut off, so Zuko looks up quickly to find that Sokka’s shoved part of the balled up sheet in his mouth, is biting down on it hard to keep from howling. Where he’s gripping the blankets, his hands are shaking. Smirking to himself, Zuko lowers himself back down, lets his tongue move over the furled skin, dip in to tease Sokka’s red-hot inner walls. He’s never seen Sokka’s thighs tremble like this.

Then, when he can’t stand it anymore, when the fire inside of him feels like it’ll burn him alive, Zuko stands on tingling legs, lines himself up. One hand comes down to grab Sokka’s hip and the warrior grabs his wrist, holds it like a lifeline. When Zuko sinks in they groan in unison.

There’s tight red-hot heat all around Zuko’s cock and everything in him is screaming for him to thrust, hard and fast and desperate, but every time his muscles clench it’s around the weight in him, the new and constant stretch. The feeling of fullness, of being held open, is intense enough on its own that when he moves, Zuko starts slow, almost tentative. The pace makes Sokka wail but Zuko can hardly handle anything faster – the sensation of the plug shifting in him as his muscles clench and unclench, as he rocks back and forth – it’s enough to make him gasp for air. Every so often it taps his prostate just hard enough to make him gasp, fall forward a little, lose every thought in his head except _more. More, more, Agni, spirits, more._

They move together like this, Sokka’s hips drawn upward, seeking, Zuko’s thrusts slow and relentless and deep. They’re both panting, silent, spellbound almost, and then the rhythm shifts, and Zuko speeds up, again, just as much as he can bear. One of Sokka’s hands is gripping Zuko’s wrist with every bit of his strength, and the other is holding the sheet like a gag in his mouth, so Zuko’s free hand comes down to wrap around Sokka’s cock. The moment Zuko’s fingers close around him, Sokka bucks up so hard Zuko almost has to stop entirely to recover from the feeling of suddenly being so deep in the warrior’s wet heat.

One stroke, his hands still gleaming with oil. Two. The sound Sokka makes, muffled by the sheet, is almost a sob. He’s clenching hard around Zuko, which makes the firebender see stars. Zuko himself is clenching hard around the plug, gasping, eyes fluttering as he fights to keep them open. He speeds up a little, biting his lip so hard it almost bleeds as the sensations inside of him blend and crescendo in what feels like a blinding storm of light –

Sokka’s hand, on Zuko’s wrist, squeezes so hard that his knuckles go white, and his eyes are shut so tight his entire face screws up. His hips rock up hard and his whole body clenches as he comes, mouth falling open. Zuko buries himself deep in that crushing velvet heat, sees stars behind his eyes as his ass clenches around the plug and his body locks up and he follows Sokka over the edge, unable to move or speak or even breathe while his orgasm crashes over him.

When he feels like he can move again, Zuko flexes his fingers first, knowing he’s grabbed Sokka’s hip so hard that the next day, there will be a bruise. In answer, his boyfriend’s hand is locked around his wrist so tight that Zuko swears he can feel his bones ache. That thought is a distant note, a trivial observation. More pressing is the fact that Sokka’s internal muscles are still fluttering around Zuko’s cock and the stimulation is so intense that it’s stealing Zuko’s breath.

Slowly, carefully, Zuko draws out, both men groaning as he does. Once they’re separated, Zuko collapses next to Sokka, already reaching out hungrily to wedge himself against Sokka’s side. Their sweaty skin pressed together, the two try to catch their breath.

“Damn.” It’s a few minutes before Sokka speaks, and when he does, his voice is nothing short of reverent. “ _Damn,_ Zuko, that was…how’d you…did you have that planned?”

“Yeah.”

“How _long_ did you have that planned?”

“I mean…” Zuko glances at Sokka out of the corner of his eye. “Probably from the time I pretended not to know what a butt plug was.”

The look on Sokka’s face is utter shock. Then consternation. Then outrage that almost verges on betrayal. Zuko snickers at the whirlwind. “You _what?”_

The firebender rolls his eyes. “Of course I knew what a butt plug was. Suki and I bought one weeks ago.”

“ _So not fair,”_ Sokka hisses, with a glare that’s almost angry enough to seem genuine.

Zuko shoots Sokka a deeply self-satisfied smirk. “Ours is a size bigger.”

“… _fuck.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am BACK beloved readers and all I have to say is: ahhh so sorry it took me so long. But thank y'all for waiting around ;)
> 
> Let me know what you liked! Let me know what you didn't like! Let me know what you want to see in the next chapter when all three are back together again! Hey just talk to me in the comments for any reason I love that shit :)


	4. we will put the lonely on the shelf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At very, very, very long last...the moment you've all been waiting for...the anniversary itself!

The day arrives and Zuko wakes early, just as he always does. Firebenders rise with the sun, even when the firebender in question had stayed up far too late the night before, reviewing grant proposals. This morning, Zuko wakes up to a stack reduced by at least a third, which he tries to pretend is an accomplishment. He’ll need to cut it by half again, and likely, once more after that. There just aren’t enough funds for all the projects his impressively impassioned citizens are attempting. Weeding out the unrealistic and the unnecessary happens quickly. A new palace for some pointless noble won’t “enrich the lives of the peasants.” A comprehensive overhaul of shipbuilding design is ambitious and certainly intriguing, but there’s hardly a worse time for it. These, and the proposals like them, are easy no’s. Now Zuko is faced with the far more difficult task of turning down real, legitimate, intriguing proposals. How is he to choose between educational reform and vocational outreach for veterans? How is Lord Zuko, hardly an adult himself, supposed to go about leading the demilitarization of an entire country? Especially one that has just ended a hundred-year war.

Usually, these concerns, and all the others that come with them, are enough to make Zuko want to tear his hair out. Last night, however, and especially this morning, he can hardly focus enough to read the missives in front of him. He keeps taking breaks, ostensibly to rest his eyes, and then he catches himself rereading the reunion scene from _Love Amongst the Dragons,_ or stanzas of his favorite poetry. It’s silly. It’s all so silly! His cheeks flush bright red every time he thinks about what he’s doing. But he can’t _stop_ thinking about it – the day, the anniversary, _them_. Sokka and Suki. Sokka and Suki, no doubt still fast asleep elsewhere in the palace, no doubt curled together in Sokka’s quarters where he’d left them. Last night, summoning superhuman strength of will, Zuko had left after an hour or so of talking and kissing and cuddling, insisting he had to get _some_ work done if he wanted to spend all of tomorrow with them. They’d been moments from sleep, and Zuko knew that all he was missing was a sweaty dogpile and Suki’s snoring, but it was still hard to separate himself from their warm bodies, reaching arms.

And then, of course, upon getting back to his chambers, Zuko had wasted all his saved time by staring off into the candle flame, thinking about Suki’s brown eyes and Sokka’s blue. He’d caught himself doodling characters on the edges of the draft proposals he was reviewing. Different words, like _sea_ and _earth_ and _snow_ and _flowers,_ and then, over and over, _love._

_Love, love, love, love, love._

And look – it’s morning and he’s up early to make up some of the time he’s lost, and here he is, doing it again.

He just can’t stop thinking about it – how lucky he is, how happy he is, how crazy it is that it’s been a year. A year with Suki, a year with Sokka, a year of two people that make him feel so completely loved he’s not sure what he ever did without them. It’s…it’s fast. It’s all gone so _fast_ that sometimes Zuko’s almost embarrassed, thinking about how easy it was to fall for them. He can’t bring himself to mind, though. And there’s certainly no part of him that regrets it.

Stifling a groan, Zuko lets his head sink to his desk, right on top of the proposal he’s _ruined_ with his loose quill. It’s one he’s decided to reject, true, but still. He’s such an incurable sap. He’s an incurable sap and he has so much work to at least try to get done before breakfast. He has a nation to run, for Agni’s sake. The taxes won’t wait because he has a boyfriend and a girlfriend and an anniversary to celebrate. With renewed vigor, Zuko sets himself to the tower of paper remaining in front of him. He’ll finish it by breakfast, he vows, and then he won’t have it hanging over him all day.

Inwardly, he knows that if the draft proposals can’t even hold his attention now, when they’re the only thing in front of him, there’s hardly a chance they’ll steal him away from what the rest of the day has in store. He’s going to at least pretend that he’s a diligent ruler, that this isn’t just a way to fill the empty hours until he can see his loves again.

_

She isn’t on duty today, but Suki still wakes early. It’s a force of habit at this point, a routine so deeply engrained that she isn’t even tired as she rises. She’s not up as early as Zuko, true, but earlier than Sokka, who’s drooling away onto his sheets. Lengthening her arms for a good, long stretch over her shoulders, Suki rises from the bed, pads to the window to look out over the city.

Sokka has nicer quarters than she does. She likes to tease Zuko about that, because it’s so obviously unfair, and Zuko always gets red and flushed and defensive, even though he knows she’s not really serious. If Zuko gave all of the Kyoshi warriors a room as nice as the ambassadors’, the palace would have to be twice again as large. As commander of her little army of bodyguards, Suki could arrange a nicer place for herself, but she prefers the same spartan accommodations as her warriors. She firmly believes that commanders shouldn’t put on airs, and even the glimmer of the harbor that she can see from Sokka’s temporary quarters doesn’t sway her resolve.

The only things that ever do sway her resolve are her boys’ _beds._ Big enough for three, for starters, and the thread count on those _sheets…_

But that’s a dangerous thought to muse on. Before she knows it, Suki will find herself on a mattress sized for a king, and she’ll be fielding all kinds of questions from the warriors. Already, there are those – palace servants, warriors, even nosy nobles – who have noticed that the Fire Lord and the Southern Water Tribe ambassador seem more than close. They think that the so-called relationship between Sokka and Suki is a fraud designed to reveal the men’s true leanings. The opposite camp points to the Fire Lord’s unusually tight friendship with the commander of his Kyoshi warriors. These same gossips think it’s significant that he’s employed an all-female bodyguard force, and that bit of talk never fails to make Suki cackle. Oh, yes, Fire Lord Zuko, notorious playboy, is sleeping his way through the ranks of the Kyoshi warriors. That’s her _favorite_ celebrity rumor she thinks she’s ever heard, and no, Zuko does not agree with her on how hilarious it is.

In any case – someday, maybe soon, they’ll be having a real sit-down conversation on what they all want, and for the first time it won’t be in reference to some bedroom escapade Suki is trying to talk them all into. Maybe she should be nervous about that prospect, but Suki just finds herself smiling. It’s been a year. A whole year, which is a time frame that seems both too short and too long. Too short because it feels like they’ve been together forever, like they’re completely comfortable, like they’re ready for anything. Too long because it all still feels new, because there’s so much still to know about each other, because sometimes Suki still wakes up wondering how and when she got so lucky. In the past twelve months, things have shifted, settled, reached a happy rhythm that has a momentum all its own. They love each other. They’re happy. Maybe things will change again, but after living through war and fighting at each other’s sides, is a little upheaval really something to worry about?

No, Suki decides, looking out over the city skyline. It’s nothing they can’t handle, together.

_

Sokka wakes unceremoniously to the feeling of a pillow slamming into his face. Sputtering, he smacks the attacker away, only to be met with another fluffy blow. “Get up!” Suki sounds fully awake, chipper, and utterly businesslike, which is completely unfair. “I’m tired of waiting and we have things to do.”

Grumbling, Sokka rolls over on his stomach, slinging an arm around his head to protect his face. He’s thinking that whatever _things_ they have to do can just wait.

Then Suki’s upending a vase of cold water on his head, and suddenly Sokka doesn’t really feel like sleeping anymore. Bolting upright, Sokka thrashes around in his sheets theatrically as he coughs the water out of his mouth. “I have to sleep here tonight,” he gripes, glaring from Suki to the wet spot now on his pillow.

Shrugging, Suki thrusts a handful of pink camellias into his chest. Sokka rather suspects that until recently, the flowers had been sitting in the water that’s now all over his face and bed. “Happy anniversary,” she tells him with a grin, and despite himself, Sokka melts. He takes the flowers, rolling his eyes to disguise how much he’s smiling.

Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and standing, Sokka dodges around Suki and heads for his closet. “I like having an anniversary, you know?” He tosses it over his shoulder to where Suki is lingering by the window.

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean, like. You and I never really celebrated when it was just us. Because I mean, really, when did we start dating?”

A theatrical gasp echoes behind him, and Sokka rolls his eyes. “You mean you _don’t remember?”_

“You don’t, either!”

“It’s a man’s job to make a lady feel special.”

“Good thing I don’t know any ladies.”

“ _Hey!”_

The pillow hits him in the back of the head, but Sokka is too busy snickering to care. “My point _is,”_ he continues, because he did have something important to say, once, “this is our anniversary with Zuko, right, but also…I don’t know. It’s like, our anniversary, too. Or I’m thinking about it that way.”

From behind, Suki wraps her arms around Sokka’s bare waist, presses her lips against his shoulder. “You’re so _sentimental,”_ she tells him, straight into his shoulder. Chuckling, Sokka pulls a shirt over his head, briefly enveloping Suki underneath it. “Hey! Let me out, stinky.”

“Stinky?” Sokka shakes his head. “You’re too cruel.”

Smirking at him, Suki flaps a hand in the direction of the bathroom. “Go brush your teeth and all,” she orders him, trying hard to get back to being businesslike. “We have things to do, you know.”

“Your wish is my command,” Sokka tells her brightly, with an elaborate bow. In the bathroom, he contemplates his reflection as he brushes his teeth, bringing a hand up to run a hand through his messy hair. Everywhere, his fingers catch on feathers and beads and leather braided into the sides of his face, which is all well and good for a warrior, if a little difficult to maintain. Sokka wonders absently if he should find himself something for Suki and Zuko. Red and green beads seem too simple, although certainly with his Fire Lord money, Zuko could figure out something with gold and silver worked in. If he was really trying to represent them, Sokka would tie a candle and a warrior’s fan to his head, but that’s not exactly the most actionable of options.

Now that he’s thought about it, this braid idea is really stuck in Sokka’s head. It started as musing, but now he twists a strand of dark hair around his finger, wondering. It’s hard, constantly being so far away from both of them. It’d be nice, really nice, to always have them close.

Sokka is shaken from his reverie by the sound of Suki pounding on the door. “Hurry _up_ in there,” she complains, and Sokka makes a face at himself in the mirror. “We have _things_ to do.”

About thirty seconds later, Sokka’s out the door, face newly dripping from the water he’s splashed on himself. “I swear to every spirit, I do all my Kyoshi makeup faster than that,” Suki grouches as she drags him through the halls.

“Well _some of us_ take pride in our appearance,” Sokka snarks, yelping when she elbows him for his joke. Even as she jabs him in the ribs, they’re both smiling, almost giddy. It is their anniversary, after all.

_

The stack of papers on his desk is still plaguing Zuko when Sokka and Suki come waltzing through the door. Suki is fairly skipping, Sokka trailing behind her with a tray in his hands. Dodging around the desk, Suki throws her arms around Zuko’s neck, planting herself in his lap at the same time she plants a kiss on his lips. “Happy anniversary!”

Chuckling, Zuko circles his arm around her waist, leaning back in his chair to look up at her grinning face. “Happy anniversary,” he says softly, and the gentle adoring look on his face is enough that Suki has to look away. It makes her feel too soft inside.

Luckily for them, Sokka is clattering around with one of the side tables a few feet away from them, only growing louder. “Breakfast in bed!” he announces, and Zuko surveys the overloaded tray of food meant to feed three.

“Breakfast on the floor?” he suggests, and Suki nods.

“Breakfast on the floor sounds safer.”

Sokka complains loudly that breakfast in bed is both comfier and more romantic, but Suki argues that there is too much syrup and too few napkins for that. Besides, Zuko adds with a sly little grin, if they all want to sleep in his bed tonight, they don’t want it to be already sticky before they even get in it.

“That,” Sokka finally concedes, “is a fair point.”

Floor it is, where Sokka ends up eating with his fingers because somehow they ended up with five chopsticks instead of six. Suki offers to feed him with her chopsticks, batting her eyelashes as she makes the suggestion, but Sokka is too impatient for even her playful seduction to work. The Water Tribe warrior doesn’t want to wait a moment – they’re eating thick pastries with fire lily syrup, which is Sokka’s favorite, though he insists it’s Zuko who loves it.

Over bowls of cut fruit, Zuko dares to ask what their plans are for the day. “I hope you don’t have everything planned out,” he tells Suki, who bites her lip to hide a smile. Both the boys whine in chorus. “Suki!”

“I’m sorry!” She doesn’t look sorry at all. “You can plan something next anniversary.”

“Next _year?”_

“Well…I have a lot of things I want us to do…”

“I like planning too, you know,” Sokka reminds her, faking sulky.

“Well, then letting me plan can be your gift to me,” Suki declares happily.

Sokka smirks. “So I can return the real gift I got you?”

“ _Absolutely not!”_

Zuko shakes his head as the two bicker. He, at least, knows better than to argue with Suki. Besides, he trusts that whatever she has planned, it’ll be just perfect.

He’s right, of course. First Suki leads them down to the market street, because Sokka loves shopping, and Zuko loves buying things for Sokka. The Fire Lord also, in an impressive display of insight, picks out a set of thousand thread count sheets for Suki, which she tells herself she just won’t mention to the other warriors. After shopping, they duck into a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant Suki’s heard about from her warriors. They’re wearing casual disguises, so for a few hours they’re anonymous twenty-somethings acting as rowdy as they want, clapping when the chef juggles their food as he sears it. “There’s a handprint!” Sokka says delightedly when he receives his charred kebab. “Zuko, could you cook this way? Heating up your hands and juggling?”

Zuko makes a face. “I can’t juggle.”

Suki leans over him, face even grimmer. “ _And_ he can’t cook.”

“Hey!”

It might be the syrup from the morning, or the fried Zankan cherries they have after lunch, or maybe they’re all just too, too happy, but on the way back to the palace after lunch the trio is positively giddy, teasing and tickling and crashing into each other joyfully the whole way down the street. Suki is grinning so wide she looks like her face will split, and Sokka is talking a mile a minute, and between them, Zuko is holding their hands tight, tight, tight.

Now, Suki informs the boys, they’re going for massages, famed in the Fire Nation for the masseuse’s heated hands. This is something all three of them can appreciate – everyone’s muscles are constantly sore from training and sparring and carrying stress. Given their post-lunch contentment, Sokka and Suki both fall asleep on the tables, with Zuko just barely managing to stay awake. On the way back to the palace, they’re all wonderfully floppy and cuddly and leaning hard into each other. When they get back to Zuko’s quarters, Suki insists that she has other plans for them, but not even she can marshal the strength to do anything but collapse into Zuko’s deliciously soft bed. For the rest of the afternoon, they doze and cuddle and talk, Zuko sandwiched between Sokka and Suki even though he insists that doesn’t make sense because he’s _not_ the smallest.

It’s not what she had planned, but Suki has to admit that it makes her pretty freaking happy anyway.

With dinner looming, the group is reluctant to split, but they’ve whiled away too much time for them to camp out first in Zuko’s room, then Sokka’s, then Suki. They split up so they can all get ready, with much complaining from Sokka. Then, unsurprisingly, he takes too long getting ready, even with no one around to distract him, and by the time he arrives at the table, Zuko, Suki, and Uncle Iroh are already talking animatedly over glasses of sake.

Dinner is delicious, a roast hippo-ox flank cooked to perfection by the palace chefs. The urge is in Sokka to stuff himself, but after the sleepiness he felt following lunch, he thinks he’d better be a little more careful this time. Knowing Suki, her planning extends well into the bedroom, and he’ll need to have some energy for that.

The sun is bleeding over the horizon when Sokka, Suki, and Zuko enter the Fire Lord’s chambers for the third time that day. They’re holding hands again, because Zuko just likes being together, and they’re barely in the door before Sokka tackles him onto the bed like an overexcited polar dog, kissing him so eagerly that by the time Suki sits down next to them, both boys are panting.

Almost as soon as she sits down, Sokka is turning eagerly to Suki. “So?”

She tips her head, playing dumb. “So…what?”

“So what are we _doing?”_ Zuko chimes in, rolling his eyes.

A smile curls up Suki’s face. “Whatever you want, baby,” she purrs, hand creeping up his chest to undo the fastenings of his robe.

“I wanna make you come.” The answer is immediate, obvious, and Suki can’t help smirking, brushing a hand through Zuko’s hair.

“That can certainly be arranged.”

It’s hard work, trying to undress someone who’s trying to undress you. Zuko is trying to tug Suki’s sleeves off her arms at the same time that Suki’s trying to undo the ties on his ceremonial robes, and they almost, _almost_ start full-on wrestling for the privilege of stripping the other down. Sokka, oddly enough, keeps them on track, but only because after disrobing himself, he immediately began working on getting Zuko’s pants off.

When he does tug Zuko’s long linen trousers down over his feet, it’s so fast that the Fire Lord lets out a decidedly inelegant yelp. “Do you mind?” Sokka asks, eyes twinkling, eyebrows wiggling. Zuko knows without asking what he means.

“Fucking _fuck_ me already,” he demands, and Sokka cackles at his impatience.

“Going to take a bit more than this to get you ready,” he reminds Zuko, whose only reply is a frustrated groan, which melts into a different kind of groan as Sokka slides an oil-slick finger into Zuko’s core.

Zuko is the next undressed after Sokka, because his hand-to-hand is no match for Suki’s. Sitting back on her heels, she smirks at him, making the firebender roll his eyes. Then, while he’s still pretending to be irritated, she whips her shirt over her head, which is distracting enough that the Fire Lord can no longer pretend to be anything but excited. Suki leans down to kiss him, but he’s having none of it. He flips over on his stomach, prompting complaints from Sokka, who’s still trying to finger him open. It’s all but impossible to focus when Sokka’s tapping at his prostate, but with shaking hands, Zuko guides Suki up towards the headboard, up against the pillows. She keeps her legs shut primly, arching an eyebrow at him, and Zuko mock growls as he tugs her thighs apart. Finally, she relents, and Zuko’s grateful. Sokka’s just worked a second finger into him and his hands are starting to get shaky.

As Sokka settles between Zuko’s legs, Zuko settles between Suki’s, and she settles her hands into his hair, knowing he won’t care if she pulls just a _little._ From where she’s reclined against the pillows, Suki can watch Sokka as he lines himself up behind Zuko, can feel between her legs the stutter in Zuko’s rhythm as Sokka sinks in. She keeps her hands in Zuko’s hair and her eyes on Sokka’s face, his tight-shut eyes as he drives forward, pushing Zuko, in turn, just a little further into Suki. The Fire Lord’s hands are tight on Suki’s thighs, and Sokka’s hands are holding Zuko’s hips, and the firebender is caught between them, rutting into the mattress as best he can. With all the breath she can muster, Suki jerks her chin at Sokka, commands him with a voice so breathy it’s almost a joke. “Take…take care of him.”

Sokka’s hand finds Zuko’s cock and the firebender groans, tongue faltering once more. For that, Suki tugs on his hair like reins, and the sweet sting in his scalp brings him back to his task. He knows Suki’s body as well as he knows his own, knows how to lick and tease and suck so that she arches off the pillows. The challenge is doing it all while Sokka is pressing into him from behind, stroking his cock in tandem, that burning stretch and delicious slide distracting him, lighting a fire inside him. When he tries to grind back against Sokka, Suki uses his hair to pull him back forward. Zuko is perfectly caught in between, and he fucking loves it, the feeling of being so wanted and so loved singing in his blood like a drug.

With renewed purpose, he pushes Suki’s legs just a little wider, wide enough to make her squirm, and teases her clit with his tongue while his hands find her entrance, crooking his finger to press against her sensitive inner walls. The way she keens tells him he’s done well.

Until he hears Suki’s almost-wail, Sokka keeps his eyes screwed shut, fighting against the impulse to pound into Zuko’s crushing heat with all the strength in his body. He’s leaning over, almost aligned with Zuko’s body, a position that lets him reach around Zuko’s hips to grip his cock. Keeping up the same smooth rhythm is torture – it’s not _quite_ fast enough – but it’s worth it to watch the way that Suki writhes against the red pillows on the bed. Right now her own eyes are shut against the onslaught of feeling, but when they do open, her brown eyes find Sokka’s. She smiles at him, hazy, dazed, and disentangles a hand from Zuko’s hair so she can reach for him, brush her fingers down his cheek. It’s gentle, fast, almost nothing, but Sokka cranes his neck and follows her hand forward, sending Zuko forward, making Suki gasp anew. Everything – every little movement, every sensation – multiplied and amplified and transferred through three bodies. They’re so close together Sokka feels, for a few dreamy moments, that they’re one, moving together, only thinking about each other.

Suki’s the first to come. Zuko has two fingers inside her and then he leans in to suck hard on her clit and she throws her head back so hard she almost hits the headboard. The moans that come out of her are stuttering, gasping, and her thighs, under Zuko’s hand, are trembling like she’s lost control of her body. He keeps going, right through her orgasm, until her face screws up with almost-pain and Zuko stops all at once, craning his neck to look up at her, face open and eager and adoring.

The first thing Suki does when she can move again is twist Zuko’s shoulders, urge him as best she can, until he gets the message and flips over. His legs maneuver awkwardly around Sokka, and for a moment the rhythm is lost, all of them grinning at each other in a decidedly unsexy way.

Then Sokka slides back into Zuko and his eyelids flutter shut.

Suki pulls him up, up, into her lap, cradling his head against her chest. Leaning forward, Sokka kisses her messily, over Zuko, all the while snapping his hips up into the man between them, one hand with a bruising grip on Zuko’s hip, the other tangling in Suki’s hair as he presses in for a deeper kiss. Suki cradles Zuko against her chest, one hand finding its way down between his legs to stroke hard, fast, unforgiving. He arches against her, trying to drive back into Sokka’s cock at the same time, and it’s hard to tell which one of them comes first, just that suddenly they’re both shuddering, gasping, eyes falling shut. Sokka does his best to thrust through his orgasm, Zuko clinging to him as he does, panting at the delicious overstimulation as his body clenches, shudders.

When Sokka does pull out, he collapses next to Suki, who’s still holding Zuko tight against her chest. It takes a few minutes for the boys to regain their breath. While she waits, Suki runs her fingers through Zuko’s sweaty hair. Jealous, Sokka whines, bumping his head against her shoulder. She settles him with a kiss on the forehead, and he snuggles tighter against her side.

When everyone’s breath has evened, and they’re all curled together in a sweet, easy, post-orgasmic haze, Suki speaks.

“Happy fucking anniversary,” she says to the room, with great relish.

“Happy anniversary fucking,” Sokka quips right back, and the groans that come from Suki and Zuko then are much different from the sounds they’d been making only a few minutes earlier.

As usual, Zuko is the first to slip into sappiness. “I love you,” he says quietly, hand coming up to pull Sokka closer. He’s still virtually on top of Suki, who hums happily and presses a kiss to the top of his head. “I love you guys.”

“So much,” Sokka agrees, wrapping an arm over Zuko’s bare back.

Suki smiles at the two of them, one hand in Zuko’s hair, the other coming to rest on Sokka’s shoulder. “So very much.”

Another few minutes of sleepy peace, and then Sokka’s voice interrupts them once again.

“So. Presents?”

_

They’d all known. Of course they had. There had been plenty of little gifts throughout the day – Suki planning, and Sokka letting Suki plan, and Zuko paying for everything. This, though, was different. The three little packages on Zuko’s dresser are the exact same size, wrapped in different color papers. Blue for Sokka, red for Zuko, green for Suki. They sit in a little triangle on Zuko’s bed, sheets crumpled all around them, everyone naked and cross-legged and looking up every few moments to smile at each other.

The pendant in the box isn’t as elaborate as the things Sokka tends to pick out for himself, but he knows he wouldn’t have it any other way. The way Suki looks at hers, with such happiness she seems ready to burst, would make a stranger believe she hadn’t picked them all out herself. And Zuko, having seen Sokka’s, having seen Suki’s, still looks so happily surprised that he gets one too. That he’s a part of this too. That it’s real, that it’s here, that it’s his.

The necklaces are simple, relatively inexpensive. A silver circle, like a large coin, with the symbols of the Water Tribe, Fire Nation, and Earth Kingdom carved in equal sizes. The trio examine the jewelry in reverent quiet, each of them thinking separate hopeful thoughts.

It’s small enough for Suki to hide it in her warrior’s robes, but she thinks that someday soon, maybe she won’t have to. The pendant is too big for Sokka to tie into his hair, but that’s okay with him. He’d rather have them close to his heart. And Zuko – Zuko keeps turning it over in his hands, testing the solid truth of it between his hands. It’s true and right and real, and it makes him feel so small and so full at the same time.

For Suki, it’s a commitment, almost an announcement. For Sokka, a constant reminder of the ones he loves. For Zuko, it’s perfect proof for bad days when he doubts himself. Each of them drape it happily over their heads, the only adornment on their naked bodies.

“Happy anniversary,” Suki says again, grinning first at Zuko, then Sokka.

“Happy anniversary,” Sokka echoes, pulling her close with one arm while the other reaches for Zuko. The firebender brushes the torn wrapping paper out of the way and throws himself happily into Sokka’s arms, knocking all three of them back onto the mattress. When he speaks, it’s over Suki’s giggling.

“Happy anniversary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y’all! I know you are here for Sexy ATLA Threesome Content™ and not my personal life but I felt like you deserved a bit of an explanation because wow have I been absent for a few weeks. Months. Whatever.   
> The truth is I lost a really close friend in November, and have been struggling with that. I had partially completed chapters for all of my other stories, but nothing written yet for this one, so it was just really hard to make something I was proud of, from scratch, given the mental place I was in. I am doing pretty okay – much better than I was – and am hoping to get back to a more consistent update schedule soon, but I honestly can’t tell y’all that that will happen, because this whole grieving process is kind of a huge bitch. But! I really do love this story, and I love you all, and your constant support has really made me happy and reminds me that writing is something I love and something worth doing even if I can’t bring myself to do it in the time frame I want.   
> That’s all – sorry for the length here. I am truly truly grateful for you all, and I hope all of you are staying healthy and happy and just doing so, so well. And also that you tell the people you love that you love them, loudly and often. That’s all for now, but never fear – this story isn’t ending yet, and likely won’t for a quite a little while. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Yayyyy more Zukki fluffy porn on the way :)
> 
> Technically this is Sukka (Sokki?!) but we will loop Zuko back in next two chapters. Please tell me what you think so far in the comments!
> 
> And if you've gotten this far and somehow missed it, my tumblr is overcomewithlongingfora-girl !


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